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Saturday, October 26, 2013

Teaching "salin karangan"

I always shared experience when dealing with high proficiency students, how they pull out the task, do this, complete that. But for today, I would like to give some spaces in this blog on how I work with the low proficiency students. When I said low, I'm talking about the students who hardly spell and have minimal vocabulary. You have to talk slowly and frequently use bilingual.

I happened to learn one idea from guru cemerlang (GC) about dealing with weak students in language class. It is to actually salin karangan. When I first heard this, I straightly planted it in my head. definitely, I will try! The GC said, that is one way to make them write and be familiar with the skill.

study...study...study! (credit weheartit.com)

I know salin karangan, might offends the student. I was worried on how to apply that in class. I want them to salin karangan but in an indirect way. So what I do is to have descriptions of a person. Make it a familiar one, so that it will be interesting. Here's the example.

Yuna:-born on 14 November 1986-began writing songs at the age of 14-became famous through the social network, MySpace where she uploaded videos of her singing.-scouted by Fadel Label, a New York based record label in 2011-has recorded 2 Malaysian albums and a US debut album, plus numerous singles-her US album entered the Billboard charts and she was nominated for an MTV Music Awards in 2012-embarked on a US tour in 2012

First, make sure you explain the meaning. go in every details, so that they understand what they are learning. Then, ask them to re-write the descriptions and guide them one by one on how to turn it into an essay. Don't go for a bumpy road, make it a simple one. Maybe just a short sentence like "Yuna was born on 14 November 1986". The focus here is not on length nor the ideas of the essay. Let's say there are a few students with better proficiency in that class. Jangan bagi dorang buat ayat simple-simple. Encourage them to write more and gives more example.

or maybe you could use an incident or event. Don't use like the one in the exam "night-walking home-football practice-friends". Ni masih susah. For low proficiency students they will come up with lintang pukang grammar. So what you can do is to provide short sentences:

A Theft

-walking home after a football practice.

-saw neighbour's house was broken.

-neighbours had gone to Australia.

-realised there must be a theft.

-called the police.

-theft running out of the house, trying to escape.

-police was waiting at the back gate.

-police praised him.

Jangan malu bertanya dengan cikgu senior. Dorang lebih tahu. Cukup masin dan pahitnya dalam bidang ni. Kalau ada masalah, share "cikgu, saya ada masalah dengan student ni"...jangan stress sendiri. Believe me, you will found out that other people were also dealing with the same situation. You're not alone. and paling penting jangan give up with that child. Every child matters kan. Lagi satu, for english teacher, you could also ask for tips from cikgu Bahasa Malaysia.

I don't have enough experience nor the know-how in this bussiness. I just happened to meet great people that gave me great advices.